TWO MOTHERS CHAPTER ONE

*Theme songs:
Shaed: Trampoline
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Halimah, a rare beauty. Golden eyes, pointed nose, high cheek bones; features of the people who colonized us. She was everything I wanted to be; graceful, bright, slender, and beautiful. Her teeth were milky white, her lips were pouty and full, her hair wasn't as spongy and kinky as mine; it fell gracefully down her shoulders. I loved her so much.

We grew together in a little town on the edge of nature. In our backyards were the highest plateaus, in our verandah were birds that sang heavenly. Our friendship always threaded the life wire; risky and dangerous. Her father had been arrested for drug possession and was locked away in a state penitentiary, her mother sold alcohol to the local men at the bar, and she was tainted with evil. The world sought her to be a tool of sin, a young girl at the age of thirteen looking all seductive and charming.

But I loved her.

The world didn't know her, only I, her best friend did. She was kind at heart, polite to an extent, and she radiated goodness. Although she was often confused about what she really was, and would be hostile to hide her hurting heart, but I knew Halimah better than she knew herself.
I am Zainab, her friend. Broad nose, short spongy hair, short crescent moonlike nails, plum body, daughter of a school principal and the biggest trader in the town; I represented everything she stood against.  My parents discerned our friendship. My father always told me to be careful because girls like her dragged adversities everywhere they went. She had gotten into massive troubles with men, with people, and girls like her would taint the image we upheld. But our friendship was beautiful, Halimah and I were destined for greatness together.

Halimah and I were born on the same day, in the same hospital, I met her when I needed a friend, and we had been together since I was six. Although our friendship was secret, we'd steal through the night to play under the moon, we shed the same tears of pain because we shared the same emotions, and we promised ourselves that when we grew to be adults, when we married different men, our children would be friends. I'd name my daughter Halimah, she'd name hers Zainab.

"I envy you." She would say, flicking the edge of the round glasses that sat edgily on my nose. "Your parents care for you. You don't have to work so hard to make many money in the future. You have an island to sustain your future children." Her dreamy eyes would picture the image for me, but I knew better. I knew how hard I still had to thrive to be whom I wanted to be.

You see, like Halimah, I am the only child of my parents, and every day, I am constantly reminded of how indebted I am towards them. Well, I wasn't always the only child, I had a brother who died three years after he was born, putting my parents into a never ending grief. Nothing is as painful as losing a child. My father always wanted a boy and when my mother couldn't bear any more children, he proceeded to groom me as two people in one; be a modest girl child, be a tough male child. Two hefty responsibilities placed heavily on my chest. To my father, I was everything. I needed to work extra hard, be perfect enough so my future would be as bright as the sun. He wanted the best for me in every retrospect, so in return, I had to be the best in every retrospect.

I grew to know just two things; to succeed and to stay ahead but, never have I ever thought Halimah would hinder me from doing so. She was my greatest cheerleader, my biggest fan, and my absolute companion.

My mother would say I was brave, strong, and intelligent but, naive. I see only the goodness of the world and do not see the complexities that surrounds my existence. You are a child who is brave up here..." She would touch my head, "...and innocent right here." She would touch where my heart pumped against the walls of my chest. I wanted to prove her wrong so, it gave me purpose.

I wasn't weak at heart. I knew it, and I understood that they didn't see it. I'd have to create that impression myself.
I remember how our storied unfolded, and how our words blew like ashes into the wind.

CHAPTER ONE

I sat stiffly at my desk as he walked by. My head was keyed to the book that was spread out on my table in pretext to be in comprehension of the words that I had been staring at, but my mind raced around my head. I wasn't allowed to think those thoughts. Boys were distractions, and only if I had achieved enough to be independent, would I be allowed to let them dwell. I heaved a deep sigh, and bit my lower lip. Who was I kidding anyway? I wasn't the kind of girl whom he would even look at, and the idea that my parents held a great position in the politics of the town, threatened any boy that dared to approach me.

His name was Mohammad. He was everything my father would approve of once I grew older, finished my education and settle to become the heir to the multimillion investment my family worked so hard over the years to build. My mother sold the finest fabrics in the whole of Unguwar Kanawar, and have several annexes around Zaria. Many girls that were born in my part of the world were trained to be housewives when they grew up, but my father knew better. While my mother instilled in me qualities of a woman and a good business person, my father taught me the principles of moral and how to walk with my head held high.

Mohammad and I were similar. Our parents were fat cats in the society, we had to live by the rules of our family book, but our only difference dwelled in the fact that girls flocked around him while everyone tiptoed around me. Mohammad was an athlete, he was a goal getter, and he was a very intelligent student who won multiple awards for the school alongside me. We always battled for grades like we were in the gladiators arena, our swords were replaced with our vast knowledge and attentiveness in class, and if I lost to anyone at all, it would be him. Although that had happened only once. He came first while I was following right behind him. Ever since that, I toughened my game and made sure that he always remained the second person in the school. Maybe that's why he would never like someone like me because, I constantly placed him in the hot seat.

I peeked over the book I was reading to catch a glimpse of him before he vanished into the dark corner of his seat at the background where he was well hidden in the camouflage of the bully boys in the class. I knew he was different. He might be the bad boy in the class, but I could see the story his eyes were telling. I could understand that his rebel was a way to get out of the trapped life he was living.
Maybe if I had tried to be a little free like Halimah, I might just be exactly like him. I had come to accept that my parents wanted the best for me, I accepted my origin, loved it wholeheartedly and worshipped its existence. My pupils followed him to the left corner and stopped at a familiar junction; staring right back at me with a smirk of pure mockery was my companion. I rolled my eyes, knowing I had been caught red handed, and there was no denying at all. If there was something I couldn't escape from, it was the searching eyes of Halimah, and her ever working hyperactive mind.

She trotted towards me in a playful way and sat very close to me, taking the book out of my hand. "You too? Come on!!! You are better than that. Don't tell me you are like other girls who wants a piece of that Kanawar cake as well."
"I don't know what you are talking about." Although I knew it was futile to feign ignorance, I wore my pride like a life jacket.
"I saw the way you looked at him (Mohammad). So sinfully."
"I really do not know what you are talking about."
"Yes, you do." She reached into my bag to retrieve my vade mecum. My brain was slow to process why she did that in the first place, but it begun to register the very minute she opened the first page. That was my secret book, a daily planner where I wrote my daily activities and any random thought that came into my mind. This was bad. Although Halimah was my best friend, she lived in a fantasy land where everything was open, no secret should ever be kept, and everything in life was exaggerated. I stood so quickly to yank it out of her hands, but she was fast. She swerved backwards in what was befitting of a volleyball player, pranced around like a skilled dancer, and smirked heavenly like an angel. I know you write about him in your small tiny book. She mocked.
"Give it back Leemah!"
"Make me." she ran to the front of the class and cleared her throat to get everyone's attention.
"Stop it Leemah." I called her. It is not funny anymore. Give it back. She probably thought it was fun to me too for she didn't even bat an eye towards me. She flipped through the pages, made an excited grin and read out loud.
"Dear M." she looked at Mohammad. "I see you, I know what you are thinking. You are a great actor. If I knew no better, I'd have said you were borne from the water, flesh, and blood of the first pretense mechanism man invented to cower into his shell. But I know better. You want to prove some people wrong that is why you are trying so hard" she read. My heart pranced in my chest heavily, scared, worried that Mohammad might see through the façade I built around myself.

    "Stop Halimah!" I shook with a fever that was sprouting from the bottom of my belly but she wouldn't stop at all. She was deriving fun from what she was doing. She read a few more lines of how I described Mohammad to be intelligent, warm at heart, and kind from within. She stopped to make mockery glances at me, laughing at my naivety. I wanted the ground to open up to swallow me, take me to damnation, to oblivion, to a place where my life jacket isn't stripped off my back by someone who I was a total aficionado of. I should cry now, I should cover my face as the whole class listened in silence and burst into a heart laughter at intervals.
 
     I was amidst my present acute distress when I saw Mohammad rise from his shadowed corner. He strode through the laughter, authority emanating from every step he took towards Halimah. For a split second amidst it all, I feared for her because I saw her brows flinch in what I could not explain. Halimah loved adventures, she loved the thrill of every awkward, and tensed moments but now, she wasn't smiling. Mohammad closed her in, snatched the book from her hand and spoke strictly to her face.

    "You say you are her friend, and you can't see how uncomfortable you are making her feel."
    "Or, how uncomfortable I make you feel." Halimah responded smiling softly, teasing his patience. She was risky, and she owned it; it was one of the many things I adored about her.

    "Stop acting childish!" he breathed firmly into her face, and turned to the rest of the class. "If anyone of you speaks about what happened just now, I'd make senior school year miserable for you." He wasn't bluffing. He came to me, held my hand out and placed my vade mecum safely in my palms. He said nothing else and walked out of the class. I watched a frown settle in between Halimah's brow, but it disappeared as quickly as it came when she turned to me.

    "You see. I think he likes you too." She breathed.

    "Stop it, it wasn't funny." I grumbled, tucking it to the bottom of my bag.

    "What's the essence of writing those nice stuffs about him, when you cant say it to him? You don't know if he feels the same way."

    "I don't feel any way about him, and he doesn't about me. I am going to study." I picked my bag, swung it over my shoulder and made to leave. She skipped quickly, fell into the step beside me, and we talked all the way to the library.








Someone died, who did? Find out in the next chapter of Two Mothers

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